Matinenenda

Had a great weekend at camp Matininda. While I was at camp I heard that my friend Konner was in town. If I had known Konner was in Blind River for the weekend I would have stayed in town.

Can't blame him though for not calling me up to confirm if I was still around, as the last time I saw him I was pretty fucking out of it. I was poor, jobless and sort of going through my midlife crises. The one where you feel you haven't lived life to the fullest in your youth, and your old enough you know roughly how the rest of your young life is going to play out and it's not too exiting.

And I cannot accept the idea that the rest of my life will not be the sort something i can objectively look forward to with excitement.

So while I was down in Toronto for my best friends wedding I projected my mid life anxiety attacks onto my best friend, a soon to be married company man, my own fatalistic fears about the future.

I didn't even do a toast to the man, as admirable as he is, rather I scribbled something down but worried it wasn't good enough so I remained silent during the toasts. How is that behavior for guaranteeing a meek and predictable life?
So I haven't really been expecting him to call when he's in town. But I can hope he will call, and look forward with excitement to our next meeting.

And know that I will have a hand in making that future meeting possible.

FAX

They say that the first step toward getting yourself out of the gutter is admitting that you have a problem.

I have discovered just today that admitting you have a problem is step two.

Step one is admitting that Microsoft has a fucking problem and that they have been fucking you well and good in the ass for the last week.

I've been faxing out my resumes to jobs in Ottawa the last week and not one person called me back.

I've been using the Microsoft fax option in Microsoft word.

Today I faxed someone I knew and found out that none of my faxes where getting to any fax machines.

Searching through the help options I found out that I needed a Microsoft XL fax account to send faxes

So when Microsoft said, "Your document has been sent" they didn't mean that it had been sent to anyone with a fax machine.

Where the fuck are my faxes? Have they winked out of existence?

Are my faxed resumes floating aimlessly forever in the ether of cyberspace?

Attaching themselves to random bits of free floating data.

Gathering into a random jumble of information

becoming self aware with menelolent intelligence?

I hope so, and I hope that menovelence is aimed at the sick evil

Microsoft fucks who cost be 7 days of job hunting.

Sick evil fucks

Roberto Shamasio

Going Quietly Pt 1

A while back I wrote about how I was fired on account of my blog.

Now that I'm trying to re-enter the security field, if only for the summer, I've had to revisit the event in my mind.

The day I was fired my supervisor at Cameco called me at home and told me she wanted a meetup and so we met up.

She told me that I was being quietly fired, and that it was best for me to keep things on the down low.

I agreed that it was best if word did'nt get around Blind River

She asked me if I had mentioned the war on terror on my blog and I said that the war on terror was a sham.

She asked if I had mentioned our patrols and I said yes but that I had not written anything that wasn't public knowledge.

I thanked her for defending me to the cocksuckers in the company and I apologized to her for having backed the wrong horse.

My supervisor later brought my personal belongings over in a box because I was thought to be told dangerous to be allowed back on site.

I received a letter in the mail a week later from my security company saying that I was fired by Cameco
for breaking my confidentiality agreement and allusions to terrorism on this website.

The letter also said that the security company itself wasn't firing me and that if I still wanted a job they would transfer me to Sault St. Marie.

I declined and I left for Ottawa three weeks later.

Roberto Shamasio

Security and Whatnot

I can't afford to not have a job so I applied to this security company who said that if I took their paid course they would give me a certificate and maybe a job,

So I paid them 200 dollars on the chance that they would later hire me.

I knew going in it was a ripoff but I can't spend another 3 months without a job, so I paid up and took the course without any promise of employment.

The course was all about courtesy, character and professionalism on the job.

I scored the worst mark of anyone I know of.

Maybe also marks were removed for spelling errors and not knowing the date. We had to write down the date we took the test and I don't really often know what day it is.

Or where all this is going

Roberto Shamasio

Artless

Went to my first private art collection today in the Ottawa Market.

The staff wasn't all bitchy or anything like in the movies. The whole time I was there though I was trying to avoid the staff because the staff was all girls.

I'm told when a girl meets a man the first thing they look at is your shoes.

And my shoes were scuffed and old, and if she looked at them she would know I was some poor as punk that had no intention of buying an $800 2 foot tall statue of "Don Xiote."

My cover was blown when one of the art people asked me

"Are you seeing anything you like?"

And I says back to her, "I like the animal paintings"

So right away everybody knows I have the artistic tastes of an 8 year old. Even with that dim remark I wasn't treated with any disrespect.

because my clothes were old but stylish beyond belief, and possibly unreasonably expensive, so there was at least a small chance that

My mom and dad are rich fucks who would like to buy a $8,000 painting of a tropical sunset.

though of course Mom and Pops have better taste than that.

My parents and I prefer paintings of northern fur bearing animals.

Maybe the hosts of the gallery were nice to me because they're genuinely good people

and they really do love art, because they're probably art students.

and were happy to share art with the unwashed masses.

Roberto Shamasio

Last Night We were wacthing Morey Povich

People I Saw on Wednesday

Yesterday I was chilling downtown

On the way I ran into my friend Rocky from the MetroWaste Recycling Plant.

Rocky and I talked about the same shit we always tak about when we hang esoteric knowledge and the 'Reptilian Agenda'.

Rocky is articulate and kind and I'm glad that we ran across each other.

The reptilian Agenda is the goal of world domination held by satanic extraterrestrial shapeshifting reptiles and some Jewish People.
Among their number is George Bush, The Queen of England and Rock star Bono the frontman of the Irish rock band U2. I'm of course joking about Bono.

Bono has never been named as a suspected Reptiod shapeshifter.

The Engineering student from the shawarma shop was at the shop today so we talked and as he was leaving he gave me my first 'knuckle press' so I was feeling all gangsta.

I actually hit his fist with my fist at the wrong angle but it went ok.

I also saw L_________, a girl I used to hang with now and again. She was shopping at 'Epochs' the jewlery store where I bought my girlfriends Christmas present

L________ once asked me if I wanted to kiss her and she great so I said yes and becouse she's so great she didn't even laugh at me.

I was going to talk to her in the Egyptian jewrly store and say hello but her husband was there and I had nothing to say so.....

Two out of three aint bad

Roberto Shamasio

Looking for Work

back in the city and looking for work again.

I'm looking at moving furniture or making sandwiches.

Moving furniture pays better than sandwich making and will get me in shape

Making sandwiches at a bar will get me half priced sandwiches

And perhaps mob connections.

Which I'm gonna need if I going to find the first five long past sold out issues of "DMZ" tha badest new addition to my monthly comic shopping list

Part 1 of a story arc began last month so if you missed the first five issues now is the time to jump on board for a new storyline.

The protagonist is a sheltered blue-blooded press intern who finds himself unwillingly stranded on Manhattan Island, a DMZ in an ongoing American civil war.

He turns his countries troubles and his own misfortune into an opportunity for employment as Manhattans only imbedded war reporter.

Speaking of which, it's been 8 weeks since I applied for employment to Halliburton’s KBR Iraqi Operations Division. No word on that so far.

My first friend in Ottawa, a refugee of the Balkan war told me one time

"When a war breaks out the scum will always float to the top"

My girlfriend works with biofilms and she tells me sometimes about all of the different kinds of scum out there.

And not all scum floats to the top

With that in mind perhaps selling out to the warlords isn't my destiny.

Besides making sandwiches is something I think I could get really good at and feel good about.

Roberto Shamasio

Back in Black

Back in Ottawa yet again, nearly penniless and not at all ready for the heat.

In wintertime it's ok to look like a proletariat because the out of work factory worker look is kind of trendy right now

This past winter I was looking trendily soviet era poor

With my long dirty wool coat, salt eaten shoes and a woman’s knotted woolen scarf I looked kind of baddas. I was looking like the right kind of poor.

This past winter I was looking depression era poor and at times French revolutionary poor, which goes along way in a city like Ottawa

I made poor look good. Not like all those fat drowning people in new Orleans.

I was looking 1984 Orwellian poor

Big brother and alt rock girls and mall security cams all had their eyes on me.

There wasn’t a sexy widower or a gay businessman that could cross me on the street without wanting to take advantage of my neediness. Tempted to offer me a 20 so suck my dick in the Ridaue Mall washrooms.

such was the style of my poverty.

Thats how stylishly desperate I looked with my spiked hair, 4 day beard and outdated v-necks.

Now tats it's summertime and it's too hot to wear those fashionably poor items I 'm feeling allot less cool about my financial predicament.

The summer wear of the barely employed is Wal-Mart t-shirts and short-shorts and I don’t even own running shoes.

I got for footwear is work boots and worn out dress shoes which would be none to stylishly mismatched with proletariat summer attire.

Fashion is a beast!

In the winter it consumes our woolens and in the summer it conusmes our pride.

Roberto Shamasio

Gone Fishin'

Well i"m shutting downt he blog for a litle bit and maybe a while. I havent' been writing much becouse I havent' been liking myself much but I never really do but now moreso than usual.

BAsicly ebcouse the last few months I've been planning on working out west to pay of my loans wich means possibly sacrificg my relationship in ottawa wich is me basicly choosing money over love.

So Just the last few days after months of planning to leave maybe I decided fuckit I'm staying in the city.

By any means neccecery.

If that means selling my ass or boxing for nickls or whatevr then thats what I'm doing.

Also I dont' think people can read my blog becouse the background is dark adn the writing is small. But then theres contrast isues with the pics.

But then maybe the pics have to go.

Beocuse the blog is suposed to be about keeping a record of my life after I'm dead, so we don't realy ned pics of walmart for that beocuse in 80 years there will be like the united states of walmart so it's not like kids won't know the origion of the place.

So i'm in living limbo now iwht no computer and....I might not have an apartment becouse i'm looking at a job in the militery and the schedule seems to indicate that blogging may be not an option for up to 9 weeks on end.

So if youre tuning in like regualrily stop imediately cuz i'm not writng for a while.

lilfe is beutifull

R____________

Flashlight Brown

last night I went to see flashlight brown at zaphods and they were pretty awsome.

But as happens more often than not, the unknown opening band stepped up and blew me away more than the band I had come to see.

The opening bands name is Kill manequin,

Everybody in the room had at one piont seen the lead singer walking around before the show.

She was tall and hot and dressed like a punk rock prostitute. She was a bit of soiuxie and the banshees and a bit vampire assasin, and a bit eigthies streetwalker.

i had all but accepted that id'nt neever see anything like that in ottawa

But you can't acount for the out of towners,

Remembe Rambo? He was an out of towner just passing thruogh and look at all the crazy shit that guy caused

So thank you toronto for once again exporting your crazy shit to ottawa for a few hours for my personal enjoyment.

I generally like any girl band that doesn't suck, dosn't wear school girl outfits and doens't smash worms onstage with thier high heel shoes.

So being that kill maneqiuns lead singer dressed like a hoe and sang like a bird, i enthusiasticly paid two dollers for thier single

When I say two dolelrs I dont' say "toonie"beoucse people who say toony sound like fucking retards.

The show in all ways went well besides some guy who I think was the lead singer of "For the Mathmatics" getting kicked out.

The mathmatics guy got kicked out for trying to start a mosh so i totally felt for the guy having myself been kcikd out of a bar for similair reasons.

When i went to the washrom later he was screaming at the doorman

"fuck you fuck you! how can you kick a guy out for dancing! I was just fucking dancing!"

HArpers in office for less than a year and it's already liek the reagen mulrooney years all oevr again.

Roberto Shamasio

Today i worked for these egyption dudes with anothe rguy form my temp agency.

We worked for these two egyptions who I think didn't like me becouse I was lebonese but fuck them.

Friggen the great fucking Pahroh Khalid deducted my half an hour from my days pay thuogh I only took a twenty miiut lunch.

Movin On

Well ottawa ended up sucking all in all

The girl thing went pretty awsome but the job thing didnt go so well.

Bottem line i don' speach french, dont' haev expereince, don't have any contacts and my degree is useless.

So I'm off to someplace new to pay off my laons and then come abck to ottawa for roudn three

So I'm off out west were things are booming and it's there that i hope to make my fortune.

I always liekd the idea of the new world, thuogh it's become politically incorrect to call it that.

I liek the idea that a man in a cotten mill int he slums of england could find his forty acres inthe west or found a diamond mine in africa or trade opium in the east.

Actaully opium trade is still a profitable albiet risky c

Party People

I just discovered the key to enjoying non industrial electronic music.

The secret is that you have to have two shit techno radio programs on two different sets of speakers at the same time

Dueling techno is almost as good as listening to alt rock except that
you can't really dance to techno.

Someguy on the radio called in to remind the Dj that some very cool people have been ripped off by very uncool guys selling counterfeit tickets to a party in Montreal.

I wanted to call in an say

"Hey Raver Nation! If you paid 50 bucks to get into a party filled with dudes wearing soothers and tennis visors then guess what?"

"You've already been ripped off, so being 'ripped off' by centerfieters

is more or less a redundancy

And I'm not intending offense to people who go to these things

having danced to hundreds of hours of industrial music I get the appeal of electronic music, and I got respect for the visor and soother crowd.

Just where I come from we don't pay to get into the party.

Forests, fields, cabins and gravel pits don't have cover charges

Thuogh you enter at your own risk.

Roberto Shamasio

New Job

Well i got a job now.

It's demolishing a wing of a hospital, 9 bucks an hour, hard work but I gota good guy to work for.

Been breathing in allot of insulation that has become all powdery since it was installed 50 years ago.

They tell me it's not asbestos and since I dont' know what asbestos tastes like i believe them.

A few hot nurses, but msotly theyre fat ugly french women.

I think the hiring comitee must be generaly made of up fat ugly lonely french woamn becouse all the male orderlies are buff goodlooking guys in thier twenties.

Living on saving mean't a life like exiled petty royalty.

Endless leasure on a limited budget

Now that I'm making money, and not much of it, I'm once again defined in part by income class and with it all the punk politics of the working poor.

This is most evidenct in the hospital cafeteria where the tables are populateda cording to proffesion.

You got the disabled, the labourers, the skilled trades the orderlies, the nurses, and posible docters thuogh I'm not sure if docters are allowed lunch breakes in Canada.

Pick any room large enuogh, and fill it with enuogh people and society will rebiuld itslef in the microcosm.

I'm broke, uncultured and son to be homeless

I'ts time to rebiuld.

Wage Slavery

I've gotten incredibly fat since coming to Ottawa.

And also I'm nearly out of savings being that I do not believe in applying for financial aid from the government.

and so my fattened belly begs me for food

And my brain wants Pepsi and alcohol

I would rob a bank but I fear that after 3 months of inactivity I can no longer outrun the policemen.

I came here for a real job to establish a carrier but it looks like I may have to go back into the slave wage game.

I hate being a slave, especially when living in an expensive city

Roberto Shamasio

St.Patricks Day

I'm not going out St.Patricks day.

Mostly I'm not going out because my girl is out of town and anyone I could go with I haven’t' talked to since returning to the city 12 weeks ago.

I got other friends but I can't go with them on account of me dating one of my friends X girlfriends and people here are not cool with that.

Besides going on out St.Patricks day is like going to church on Christmas eve.

Showing up one that night doesn't really count for fuck all if you having already been showing all year.

And I've paid my dues in the irishnes department as I have

1. bought Gerry Adams biography and only rarely tell people how much is sucked ass.

2. Been questioned by the police in the matter of a stolen portrait of the Queen of England.

3. Argued that blown away was an Oscar worthy film masterpiece

4. Read 44 Irish short stores within two months which no one should have to do.

5. People call me Seamus though it's a mispronunciation of my Arabic last name.

So as far as I’m concerned I'm already living the life 365,

watching Conan O’Brian, pubbing rather than clubbing and reading

an Phlobaht once a month since high school nomatter how badly written it is.

So I'm staying in this St.Patricks day,

taking the day off to celebrate my pan Arab national identity.

And googling irish +pale +redhead +wet + horny

ROberto Shamasio

Vegetables

Being a vegetarian I'm finding that vegetables are getting old fast.

I've started putting Thai spicy beef powder in with my vegetables.

it's the taste of Thailand.

Minus the taste of sex with impoverished Thai children.

A crime for which Westerners should bear the brunt of the giult.

I myself would go there just for the genuine taste of spicy beef with vegetables.

Roberto Shamasio

Nineties Night

tonight I went to Barrymores Music hall to meet up with my ex girl friend "C______" who was in town for a few days.

The theme at Barrymores on Thursday night is "Nineties" Night.

A former boyfriend of hers and an old pal of Mine Mike M was also going to be there.

So the theme for me was, "People who Dated "C_______ During the Nineties" night.

I dressed up in my best nineties gear, striaght out of the grunge era.

I had bedhead hair, a punisher T-shirt, black boots, and a raggedy ass plaid jacket.

I was ready to rock the house. Anyone who saw me on the he Bud knew that I was either going to nieties night or Amnesiac.

We were to meet inside at 10 and I got there at 10 to 11 and there was a huge fucking line at the door.

First thing I noticed about he lineup was that nobody was wearing flannel or T-Shirts or even boots.

each and everyone of them was shiny and happy and squeaky clean.

I was like, WTF isn't this Nineties Night?

the girls were all dressed in skany dresses though some were dressed ok but regardless they didn't' dress like anyone I knew in Blind River 10 years ago.

Also the girls we heavier than I remembered but then people were thinner back then and the only girls I knew in the 90's where in highschool.

So being that i was 50 minutes late, facing a line up and possible refused entry based on my lack of 2006 themed attire.

I fucked off down the street to the Shawarma shop where people really know how to dress nineties.

At the Shawarma shop They wear bluejeens, t-shirts and of course the Hijabs which haven't changed much in the last 10 years.

home sweet home

Roberto shamasio

"FeLL"

Picked up a new comic book called "Fell" today at the comic book shop.

Since it was half the price of a normal comic book.

And it was written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Ben Templesmith

Both comic book gods in their own right. Proven again with "FeLL."

One of the main draws to the comic book however was the idea of it taking place in a city with a soul.

And the soul of the city has gone mad and the residents are feeling it. Or maybe the city was insane fro the begining.

It reminded me of how I felt in those eight months I spent in Toronto.

Toronto was thick with phychic static with it when I lived there.

I still haven't recovered from it. I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that the cities pyschic feedback contributes in part to the confused mental state of those who live on the streets.

Even inside the shops I felt like I was walking on someone's toes and when I put my feet down and

when I breathed in a lungfull of air I could feel the spirit of the place passing through my teeth.

Or maybe I was just feeling the powergrid and sucking in pollution.

I was thinking of going back but "Fell Reminds me how it was so

Hell no! Not ever ever again!

Roberto Shamasio